What was olympus mons named after

The name Ultima Thule, signifying a distant unknown place, is fitting but it is currently just a nickname pending formal naming. The official names of the body and of the features on its surface will eventually be allocated this could take years by the International Astronomical Union IAU , which celebrates its centenary in Planetary scientists would find life difficult without names for at least the largest or most prominent features on a body.

If there were no names, the only ways to be sure that other investigators could locate the same feature would be by numbering them or specifying map coordinates.

Either option would be cumbersome and unmemorable. Building on some of the already entrenched lunar and martian names, the IAU imposed order by establishing themes for the names of features on each body.

Among other descriptor terms are Chasma a deep, elongated depression , Mons mountain , Planitia a low lying plain and Planum a high plain or plateau. Descriptor terms are chosen to avoid implying that we know how any particular feature formed. Similarly, none of the giant mountains on Mars that are almost certainly volcanoes has volcano as a formal part of its name.

While we don't have any rovers exploring the mountains right now, planetary scientists manage to probe the volcanoes with rocks from Earth.

By studying six nakhlite meteorites from Mars previously established as volcanic, scientists confirmed the extensive lifetime of Martian volcanoes. We found that the nakhlites formed from at least four eruptions over the course of 90 million years," Benjamin Cohen, a planetary scientist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, said in a statement.

The meteorites were blown into space when a massive rock crashed into the planet 11 million years ago. Another group of 11 Martian meteorites revealed that the volcanoes were active even longer. While 10 were only million years old, an eleventh, NWA , was found to be 2. The volcanoes in Tharsis Montes are so large that they tower above the seasonal Martian dust storms. Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli , who studied the Martian surface intensively in the late 19th century, observed the enormous features from Earth using an 8-inch 22 centimeter telescope.

When NASA's Mariner 9 arrived at the red planet in , it was able to pick out the tops of the volcanoes above the storms. While no rovers have yet made the trek to the Martian mountains, that hasn't stopped many from dreaming about exploration.

So while it might be awhile before you can physically climb the massive volcano, you may be able to at least explore it visually. In fact, some scientists have used the High Resolution Stereo Camera installed on the European Mars Express orbiter to create a mosaic and terrain model of the volcano. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community space. Nola Taylor Tillman is a contributing writer for Space.

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